


cosmological constant

by alittleonedge



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 05:42:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16717521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittleonedge/pseuds/alittleonedge





	cosmological constant

He leans in and travels his index finger down her cheek. He hooks his thumb over her bottom lip and then slips it over her chin. He pulls her face toward his and lays his lips on her warm forehead.

There is a brushing back and forth of his mouth that she can feel skimming from one side to the other, slowly, and she inhales, thinking about the moment he’s going to ghost down the side of her face and kiss her. She remembers this incredible tenderness from a million times before, but it feels different somehow. It comes with the risk of losing what they had lost for a while already.

“Mulder,” she breathes, and his nose is skimming down the side of her face, his fingers sliding up her neck and into her hair. She pulls at his lips with hers, once, twice, three times before sighing. “Tell me…remind me,” she sweetly begs, “what it was like the first time.”

He pulls her hair a little so he can see her. “The first time what, Scully?”

Her eyes take the familiar path from his full bottom lip, up his strong nose, to peer right into his eyes. And just like that, she starts to remember exactly what it was like to have Mulder staring into her soul, craving to understand her, craving her.

“The first time you touched me.” 

She feels his size, even while sitting on the couch. Sometimes she thinks he’s made of the whole universe and the universe of him. Interchangeable matter, floating in and through his brilliant mind. And how lucky to live in Mulder’s reality, where she is more beautiful than any heavenly body, where miracles exist, where time is allowed to slow down so that she might soak in a moment more completely, where absolute wonders never cease and starlight gathers in the eyes of a man who reminds her that everything is beautiful from the way a lightning bug drifts across a mossy forest floor to the bright lights that promise existence beyond.

One of his hands drops into hers and he lifts it as though to shake it. 

“The first time I touched you was in 1993.” He squeezes around her fingers. “And I was mad about this little hand with the firm grip. I kind of didn’t want to let go.”

She smiles. “That’s not what I meant.” Her heart still thumps, however, at the memory of a young Mulder turning to her. At the time she found it unnerving that he printed, read, and kept her senior thesis. Now, she remembers it as sweet. The space time continuum has shifted a little. 

He brings her hand to rest over his heart. “I was nervous,” he says.

She shifts toward him, her mouth pulling to the side.

“When you met me, or when we made love?”

“Both.” 

She leans forward again until her forehead makes contact with his lips. “Me too,” she says. 

“I’d never seen you tremble before.” His words are soft and humid against her. “You were always so sturdy, Scully. But I put my hands… right here.” His hands go to her waist. “And your knees gave out a little, and you fell into me.”

She follows suit and falls toward him, dropping her head to his shoulder, her lips at his neck, and her hand still firmly settled over the knocking in his chest.

“I wanted you so bad,” she murmurs, and she feels his heart rate increase against her palm.

She feels his life pumping through his body, the memories washing through his nervous system. His universe, expanding, making room for the memory they are building right this moment, with the air stilled around them, and the scent of cherry drifting from the table before them. She implores him with her tongue on his jugular to keep this memory safe in the winding bubblegum mass of his brain.

She feels him move to get up. She follows. Just like she did the first time this happened. He had looked at her just like he was now, with kind eyes, with shyness, with a tilted head and the beginnings of a smile. He takes a step backward toward the stairs. She follows again. And Again. She hasn’t been in that bedroom in a while. A year, maybe. Maybe more. It was a step they hadn’t taken yet, but as he stops at the steps and motions for her to go up before him, she feels the pull of his universe, the inevitable and reliable gravity, the bed acting on her in equal parts, even though it is out of sight. It is there and it calls to her.

“This isn’t like the waterbed,” she says while standing at the foot. He closes the door and pauses to watch while she drags her hand across the comforter. She’s in the center of every universe all at once, here in this bedroom, at the end of the bed they bought together and broke in together.

“I was so embarrassed of that dumb fucking thing,” he grumbles.

“I thought it was sexy.” She shrugs and looks at him.

“Don’t say it.”

“What? I’m a Naval Captain’s daughter.”

“You went there. You said it.”

He moves toward her and she feels the alignment of the stars. His hands grip her waist again and there is a reverent look on his face.

“You are my wife, and you made sure our marital bed was firm so we don’t get lower back aches. You are Dana Katherine Scully and you find throw pillows sexy.”

It is big, him calling her his wife. The separation was only ever that, and sometimes that title still blips into her mind like a hiccup. But it feels so right that she steps right back into the role like her one favorite pair of jeans.

“But in the moment,” she reminds him and lifts up on her tiptoes to nip his chin. “It was sexy.”

“And in this moment?” 

She can’t remember exactly what she said to him that first time. She doesn’t remember him seeming all that nervous. She wants to remember that it was fiery and smooth like whisky, but in reality, it was a little clumsy. But all the same, she remembers it as perfect. She’s not concerned anymore, about not remembering the way things were. She rewrites their history and etches the different versions of it into her heart. None of that fuzzy stuff really matters, anyhow. Because the feelings are the same; she doesn’t want them to get hurt, she doesn’t want it to be over, and she loves him and loves him and loves him more than she knows what to do with. And his hands at her waist are still making her knees a little weak. And he loves her too. 

“In this moment,” she starts and slides her hands beneath his shirt. “I am your wife. And I want you. Badly.”

Stars are born in his irises.


End file.
